


A Sheltering Tree

by Mickey_McKeown



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-30 09:32:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15748980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mickey_McKeown/pseuds/Mickey_McKeown
Summary: Liz, Ressler, and a big bang.





	A Sheltering Tree

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alyb123](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alyb123/gifts).



> This is for alyb123, who is one of the legends of this fandom, so I hope I have done her request justice. The title is from the poem Youth and Age by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 'Love is flower like; friendship is like a sheltering tree'.

“Are you incapable of being on time for anything, Keen?”

Liz rolled her eyes at her partner’s exasperated greeting. “I’m two minutes late, Ressler. Hardly a capital offence.”

He glanced at his watch. “You’re ten minutes late. Get a new watch.”

“Oh.” Liz glanced down at her own watch with a frown. When she looked back, Ressler had already marched off towards the storage units. She rolled her eyes again, and jogged to catch up. “Can you slow down?” she asked lightly. “Some of us don’t have freakishly long legs like you.”

Her partner’s sigh was audible but he slowed his steps to allow her to keep up, and her sideways glance caught a hint of a smile playing across his lips. 

“Why are we here, exactly?” she asked, surveying the rows of storage units. “Red told us it would be a waste of time.”

The small smile dropped, to be replaced with a scowl. “Our jobs do not involve taking orders from Reddington,” he told her, shortly. “We investigate plausible leads, and this,” he gestured to the unit, “is a plausible lead.”

“From what we know about Danja Sremac, she doesn’t seem like the type to have a secret lock-up in a storage unit,” Liz pointed out.

“And for what it’s worth, I agree,” Ressler replied, coming to a halt beside the door. “But we still have to check it out.”

Liz offered no more protest, drawing her gun and signalling her readiness with a nod. Ressler also had his gun drawn, and with one hand, he opened the door to the storage unit. 

The empty storage unit.

“Damn it!” he swore, lowering his weapon. He glanced round at Liz, who looked equally frustrated. “If the next words out of your mouth are ‘I told you so’, I swear to God, Keen…”

“Ressler…” 

The noted of fear in her voice as she whispered his name made him turn. He followed her frightened gaze to a box by the wall. A box with flashing red numbers. A bomb.

“Shit!”

He grabbed Keen by the arm and propelled her roughly out of the door. They ran, Ressler dragging her along as she stumbled, tripping over her own feet in her attempt to get away as fast as possible. Away from the unit, he pushed her to the ground, and, just as the bomb exploded, covered her body with his own.

There was a flash of searing heat and sound, and Liz blacked out. For how long, she didn’t know, but when she opened her eyes, the heat had died down and there was a dull roaring in her ears. She was vaguely aware of a heavy weight against her back, inhibiting her breathing, and remembered that Ressler had shielded her from the blast. 

“Ressler?” 

She was probably shouting, but couldn’t hear her own voice through the ringing in her ears. She tried to move, but the weight was too much for her aching and bruised muscles. 

“Ressler, you can move now, I need to get up.”

There was no response and no movement from her partner. Her thoughts about her own predicament dissipated as she realised the implications. 

“Ressler!”

Now she knew that she was shouting, trying to get any response from him. His deadweight - no, not dead, don’t think dead – continued to crush her against the ground. With renewed determination, she shifted, this time managing to move Ressler’s immobile form and roll to the side. Muscles protesting every movement, she sat up and looked over to her partner. One side of his face was covered in blood, the red liquid still seeping from a cut on his head. Dust and debris covered his skin and clothing, and his arms were covered in small cuts and scratches. 

Liz shifted closer to him. “Ressler, come on. Wake up. Don!”

Either from the use of his first name, or from the sheer volume, her shout finally elicited a response. Ressler’s eyelids twitched and, to Liz’s relief, his eyes opened. 

“Hey,” she said softly. “You’re okay.” She rested her hand on his shoulder, as much for her own reassurance as his. His eyelids began to slide closed again, and Liz shook his shoulder gently. “No, no, no, you need to stay awake for me, okay?”

“Liz?” he muttered. His voice was hoarse and slurred, and his blue eyes looked glazed and unfocused. 

“Yeah, it’s me.” She exhaled shakily. “I’ve got to call this in, just stay awake? Can you do that?”

Ressler managed a small smile and a nod, and Liz felt some sense of reassurance as she pulled out her phone to call Cooper. He answered after two rings.

“Sir, we need backup and an ambulance at our location. Danja must have known that we were coming, she rigged the unit to explode. I’m fine, but Ressler’s badly hurt. Yes, sir. Okay.”  
She hung up and turned back to Ressler, whose eyes were once again closed. “Ressler?” No response. “Don! Come on, don’t do this to me.” 

She shook his shoulder, gently at first, then with more desperation. When he remained motionless, she rested a hand on his chest, letting out a relieved sigh when she felt the rise and fall of his breathing. It was hesitant and slightly laboured, but all Liz cared about at that moment was that he was alive and that he would stay that way until the ambulance arrived within the promised five minutes.

Carefully avoiding the cut on his head, she smoothed his hair back from his forehead where it had been displaced in a very un-Ressler-like way. Returning her hand to his chest to reassure herself that he was still breathing, Liz took a moment to observe her partner. Unconscious, the seemingly ever-present frown was gone, replaced by an almost peaceful expression that made him appear far younger. The blood stood out starkly against his skin, already naturally fair, turned paler by shock and blood loss, and glistened on the angled planes of his face. It disturbed her to see him lying so limp and lifeless, one arm draped loosely across his stomach, the other slightly bent at his side. Ressler was the team’s tower of strength, both physically and mentally; to see him so vulnerable was unsettling.

The ambulance arrived, true to Cooper’s word, in perfect time. The paramedics wasted no time: one guided Liz away towards Red and Cooper, who had arrived behind the ambulance, while the other began to assess Ressler. 

“Lizzie, are you okay?” Red asked urgently, hands gently gripping her shoulder. 

Liz forced a smile, but kept her eyes firmly on the paramedics, who were lifting Ressler onto a stretcher and wheeling him towards the ambulance. “I’m fine, Ressler shielded me from the worst of it.”

Red sighed in relief. “Then it appears I owe a debt of gratitude to dear Donald.” He appraised Liz’s appearance. “Perhaps you should get cleaned up before we go to the hospital to wait on Donald?”

Liz looked down at her dirty and torn clothing and nodded. It wouldn’t do any good for Don to see her looking like that. She allowed Red to steer her towards the car and sank into the backseat gratefully.

xxx

It was an hour later that Liz and Red arrived at the hospital, and another three before they could see Ressler. According to the doctor, he had suffered a concussion and a collapsed lung. His injuries, she had reported, were serious but not critical. 

Now, Liz sat by his bedside waiting for him to wake up. She didn’t know whether to thank him for protecting her, or to berate him for nearly getting himself killed and scaring her half to death. When she had told Red as much, he had smiled that annoying little half smile of his and patted her hand knowingly. She rolled her eyes at the memory.

“So, apparently even being injured doesn’t save me from the dreaded Keen eye roll.”

Her head snapped around to stare at Ressler, who was regarding her with a smirk. “You’re awake!” she exclaimed, standing up from the chair. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I got blown up,” he returned drily. He appraised her, looking for any visible injuries. “Are you okay?”

She huffed a laugh. “Yeah. Some idiot decided to shield me from the explosion.”

“I think the words you’re looking for are ‘thank you’,” Ressler suggested. “That tends to be the usual response when someone saves your life.”

“If you weren’t in that bed, I’d hit you.” She glared at him, but her gaze softened after a moment. “But thank you. For saving my life. Not for giving me a heart attack when I thought you were going to die.”

Ressler laughed, then winced at the pain it caused. “You’re welcome, Keen.” 

His eyes were beginning to slip closed, and Liz smiled gently. “I’ll leave you to rest. Get better soon, you can’t leave me to deal with Red alone for too long.”

His lips twitched into a smile, his eyes closing. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”


End file.
